merlin

I think I've mentioned before that after every Yankee win, I realize that the journey is better than the destination. Every time they win, I remember this. I mean, obviously...seeing your team win is better than not seeing them win. It's very difficult to understand what happiness should be in a sport with no post-season. I enjoyed the Championship season more than any of the other...six or seven I've been a fan for. Of course we were winning loads of games, though. So I guess winning is happiness. Who the hell knows. Try waiting 44 years before winning anything and then see if the journey is still better than the destination...!

Kind of agree with that. They set the standards to what a club the size we are should be. But the Prem landscape has altered ridiculously since even Sir Bobby was in charge. Still think though, that bottom half of the table is unacceptable mind. Kind of agree with that. They set the standards to what a club the size we are should be. But the Prem landscape has altered ridiculously since even Sir Bobby was in charge. Still think though, that bottom half of the table is unacceptable mind. Its only altered in that some other clubs have richer and more ambitious owners than we do - some of these don't even have a stadium to match ours OR the crowds.

France have won the WC ONCE - just like England...how have they performed in Int Competiton since 1998..? They have SOME good players but as for making them the yardstick for footballers ? Don't buy it. Think Germany, Argentina and Brazil for consistently top sides - look how Hamman and Podolski have done in their PL stints as well as many of the Argies who came here. Holland also produces good players but they are a small country so lose them quickly. The reason there are not more Germans in the Pl is that the Bundesliga is a good league and they are pretty well paid too. England could produce at least as many good players as France if they had a proper coaching set-up for kids and young players...the will simply isn't there in the country to do it. France aren't the yardstick for good footballers but Ligue 1 is a great place to shop if you want good footballers for sensible money because the wages are so much lower. ...and that is all that matters to Ashley and Llambias.

Do you not accept it though? FWIW I agree it's sad, but the problem is with the league not us. Not long-term I don't, which is what the question is. Might as well not bother. Surely the whole point of football is to try and win stuff? Especially the domestic league. Course it's the point, but the current situation in the league makes it virtually impossible. Whether or not people will start to think of football as pointless remains to be seen. For me, it just about offers enough on a weekly basis to help me forgot how futile the bigger picture is. Obviously it needs to be done in steps, but it can be done. In our current model we'd need to get into the CL first to garner the revenue/status necessary to get the class players in/keep our current ones, of course. It's naturally a lot easier if you've got someone chucking money at it. Spurs operate a similar way and got relatively close to challenging at the top, mind. They're still up there amongst it now despite a rocky period, although of course they're not in the title race right at this moment. I dunno, taking a long-term view I just don't see why a club of this size shouldn't be trying to compete at the top-level and harbouring the aim of winning the PL. Spurs will have a bigger stadium and revenue will go through the roof in a few years too when they've their new ground. There were some on this site earlier in the week arguing that a big crowd/stadium isn't important anymore..!!

Getting rid of Ashley, Llambias and Pardew in favour of owners with REAL money and the will to invest it properly and who will then appoint a decent PROVEN manager and give him the tools to do the job. Won't happen any time soon and there are more grim years like this ahead - success for the current clowns is keeping the club above the bottom 3 and being able to sign players on cheap fees/wages before top clubs spot them ; not only is this difficult to do, but they need to know football to achieve it and they don't.

France have won the WC ONCE - just like England...how have they performed in Int Competiton since 1998..? They have SOME good players but as for making them the yardstick for footballers ? Don't buy it. Think Germany, Argentina and Brazil for consistently top sides - look how Hamman and Podolski have done in their PL stints as well as many of the Argies who came here. Holland also produces good players but they are a small country so lose them quickly. The reason there are not more Germans in the Pl is that the Bundesliga is a good league and they are pretty well paid too. England could produce at least as many good players as France if they had a proper coaching set-up for kids and young players...the will simply isn't there in the country to do it.

I agree with all this to be honest. I was actually thinking earlier that if pulis was in charge, yes we'd still play s**** football, but he knows how to make it work and his team plays as a team. Pardew can't even make the crap football work and the players look more like individuals out there than they ever have. The very fact that we are thinking that Pulis is an improvement shows how far expectations have fallen among fans and how Ashley and Llambias have made the club a shadow of what it shoud be.

Very hard hitting, but a lot of what you say rings true. I agree - brilliant post from gbandit, he's right on the button with everything he says.

f*** off man. Tit. Has anyone thought this guy might be an Ashley/Llambias troll ?

Spot on CP - Ashley and Co are just using NUFC as an advertising vehicle for Sports Direct. They will suck the club dry eventually, and destroy all the loyalty that fans had in it...I honestly believe they are going to be the ruination of Newcastle United by their actions..or lack of them.

On deadline day they appear to be. Why is any other day any different? QPR managed to start and finish the Remy deal in the space of about 24 hours didn't they? QPR didn't do the deal in 24 hours... It doesn't matter - WUllie's point is correct. They got the player and relatively quickly too after he heard their terms.....we used to do deals quickly when SJH and KK were running the club and quietly too in most cases. The current board are all talk and no action...as for Pardew, he's just a puppet in transfer dealings. It's in no way correct. It is perfectly clear to everyone why Remy went to QPR and how it happened quickly. Even then, it wasn't that quick. In relation to why transfers take place so late in the day - again this is pretty obvious. Unless the selling club actually wants to sell the player, it is 100% in their interest to delay the transfer and take as long over it as possible in order to possibly keep the player or extract more money. The January window is a seller's market. If they weren't so inefficient at both running a SUCCESSFUL PL club and managing one, we wouldn't have to be buying in a 'sellers market'. It is painfully obvious we will never approach anything like an agreement on this subject - suffice be it to say that Alan Shearer holds the same view as I do.....

that intent was there last summer if we are to believe they moved the goalposts for debuchy, douglas's demands spiralled and put off more than just us and de jong chose to play nearer home and van der weil chose PSG over us. How many points are given out for intent at the end of the season? Some fans are too easily pleased that we even exist as a club - just threaten us with going out of business and see the serious buyers emerge then...the road to hell is paved with 'good intentions'...

On deadline day they appear to be. Why is any other day any different? QPR managed to start and finish the Remy deal in the space of about 24 hours didn't they? QPR didn't do the deal in 24 hours... It doesn't matter - WUllie's point is correct. They got the player and relatively quickly too after he heard their terms.....we used to do deals quickly when SJH and KK were running the club and quietly too in most cases. The current board are all talk and no action...as for Pardew, he's just a puppet in transfer dealings.

In the summer they made a gamble that investing about £3m in the squad would be enough. If we stay up, the gamble pays off. Champagne bottles pop, Pardew gets a pat on the back and we move forward to next season. Hopefully they'll have learnt something from it. so you think there was no truth or intent in the debuchy, de jong and douglas bids ? At some point you have to step back and acknowledge that intent isn't enough. We have to actually do these deals, even if it costs a little bit more than we'd like. When you spend as much time identifying and monitoring players as we do, to then not get them isn't good enough because you've wasted all your time and resources and there's nobody else. The whole point of doing what we do is to ensure the player is a success, so to then miss out goes beyond a minor inconvenience in my opinion. Especially when the team and squad weaknesses are so vivid. As a direct result of failing to go the extra mile and get players such as those you mention, we're currently teetering on the precipice that is relegation from the Premier League. If we don't bring in the kind of talent and depth that you point out we evidently wanted in the summer to fill gaping holes and are subsequently relegated, will you be content in the knowledge that the intent was there? Alan Shearer summed it up yesterday - its time to pay up - i.e., the going rate for wages and transfers, or pay the consequences. He said that all we get from Newcastle is noises of intent, then very little action. He is as accurate with this as he was as a striker...there is no other way of looking at it.

I'm not sure what odds I'd have gotten for us losing to ourselves 1-0? Er - riighhtttt.....

That's about the size of it...

Why ? Because there are a hell of a lot of s**** owners out there. Plus I'd imagine if it got to the point at which Ashley felt forced out (I don't think he'd get what he wants for it otherwise), he'd actively sell us to the biggest c***s he could find. Ashley can't pick and choose who he is going to sell to if he wants to get back the money he has spent on the club and nothing is more important to him than dosh...that much is obvious now if it wasn;t before. Any potential buyer of NUFC is going to have to fork out hundreds of millions and people who do that will want to see their investment successful. How many of the top 10 PL clubs would you say have s--t owners ? SJH sold to Ashley rather than Shepherd because he got the impression that Ashley would be a better owner - he even told him what a responsibility it was running a club like NUFC whose fans lived and slept football... He was fooled and just because Ashley would like to screw us over will not affect his desire to recoup his money. At best, the chances of getting a worse owner are 50/50 in my view. If all people want is the club to exist and be lower PL every year with a quick Cup exit, then fine - stick with Ashley. Even that is looking theatened this season......

The guy has proved to be a good manager of a football team - any financial issues are for the directors but he has in the main, got results. QPR in better form than NUFC and Redknapp is a much better manager than Pardew - a look at their past histories shows that - who would bet their house on us getting the recent results they have achieved ? It won't be easy for any of the teams at the bottom to stay up but I wouldn't bet against them - they have a chairman who has set up good financial deals with big companies(Wonga anyone..?) and a manager with a proven record and the ability to attract good players and get them playing.. They won't give 2 stuffs what NUFC fans think of them if they stay up and if we go down they will be the ones laughing....

Exactly - it will happen regularly.

Because Man United are one of the biggest clubs in the world, who win things constantly, whilst Man City are the richest club in the world, and therefore pay obscene wages. A better way of looking at it would have been to consider Man City's pulling power before the advent of stupid amounts of money. So you think Remy went to a smaller club just because they are in London ? Don't buy that at all - maybe if it was Arsenal, Chelsea or Spurs - A footballer can jump on a plane from Newcastle and be in London in less than an hour and have you tried travelling through there in the rush hour. Don't know why we bother having a national competition - lets just all watch while London and Manchester win everything and we plebs from the sticks can have the scraps eh..? KK never had a problem selling Newcastle to decent players.. Perhaps you've forgotten that....

Why ?

Agree absolutely - we have just lost out to a smaller club in the transfer market yet people are being taken in by a club story of going for one of Ajax's best players - whose brother, incidentally, turned us down last summer. I've heard of grabbing at straws but this is ridiculous - surely after the last 6 months, people should only get excited about possible transfers when the player signs and appears at a press conference ... This is NUFC, run by the Chuckle Bros, we are talking about..!

...and other people justify us not having the amount that we should have. It's not about a sense of entitlement, most of us know where we are, but there's something wrong in football when we're missing out on players to QPR. Not just us either. Yes, there is something wrong in football, the way clubs with rich owners can buy success. If you believe there is something wrong, why support any club, let alone one which doesn't compete against smaller clubs in the market ? Do you believe that all businesses should be hamstrung by the same rules because the unsucessful ones have poor directors and managers ? Football is a BUSINESS - like it or not. Good bsuinesses prosper, those with problems or under-capitalization eventually go under - look at HMV and Jesspos..

We have proved ourselves to be pretty canny TBF. In this case it's that we don't have enough money. Have we ? We LOOKED as if we did with Cisse, then look at his goals return this season.. We LOOKED as if we did with Tiote but he is now unrecognizable as the player we signed... We probably DID get lucky with both Cabaye and HBA(the latter because he had been at loggerheads with his previous manager) but how long do you think they will remain at SJP if we either get relegated or just miss it? We missed out on De Jong and he has not been a success so far at Moenchengladbach - likewise Douglas - we had to sell Ba for a relative pittance because we wouldn't have got him anyway if we hadn't agreed to the exit clause in his contract and we got lucky with selling Carroll because Liverpool were stupid enough to pay 35m for him. Obertan has been poor and Bigi is still a young player...Good is on loan to Bradford . Colo is probably the best signing we have made and that was under KKs management - there is no way Ashley would have agreed to Colo's original contract. Then we have the likes of Williamson...perhaps we won't go there.. As for Debuchy, there is NO way he would have arrived at SJP if Cabaye hadn't been there..... If we don't have enough money how come QPR did and whose fault is it if a club getting 50,000 gates versus one getting 20,000 odd can't compete in the transfer market ? A London club with 20,000 would be more attractive to most foreign players than NUFC with 50,000 or even 70,000. That defeatist answer doesn't deal with my question, which was WHOSE fault is it if a club getting 50,000 crowds can't compete in the transfer market with one getting 20,000 ? And as for London's attraction, that wasn't why Remy went there - if you believe he did, you are totally naive. Manchester is in the north but neither club has difficulty attracting players..why is that ??

We have proved ourselves to be pretty canny TBF. In this case it's that we don't have enough money. Have we ? We LOOKED as if we did with Cisse, then look at his goals return this season.. We LOOKED as if we did with Tiote but he is now unrecognizable as the player we signed... We probably DID get lucky with both Cabaye and HBA(the latter because he had been at loggerheads with his previous manager) but how long do you think they will remain at SJP if we either get relegated or just miss it? We missed out on De Jong and he has not been a success so far at Moenchengladbach - likewise Douglas - we had to sell Ba for a relative pittance because we wouldn't have got him anyway if we hadn't agreed to the exit clause in his contract and we got lucky with selling Carroll because Liverpool were stupid enough to pay 35m for him. Obertan has been poor and Bigi is still a young player...Good is on loan to Bradford . Colo is probably the best signing we have made ..do you think Ashley would have agreed to pay Colo's original contract. Then we have the likes of Williamson...perhaps we won't go there.. As for Debuchy, there is NO way he would have arrived at SJP if Cabaye hadn't been there..... Colo was getting 80,000 a week...do you think THAT was stupid and would Ashley pay any player that now, even though that is reputedly what Remy is getting from QPR ? If we don't have enough money how come QPR did and whose fault is it if a club getting 50,000 gates versus one getting 20,000 odd can't compete in the transfer market ?